


Don't Worry About Drowning (Someone Will Help)

by Allise



Series: One-Shots and Drafts that didn't make it Big Time [2]
Category: Frankenstein & Related Fandoms, Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 09:53:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23349472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allise/pseuds/Allise
Summary: Adam swore he had moved past his- well- past. It catches up to him.
Relationships: Robert Walton/Frankenstein's Creature
Series: One-Shots and Drafts that didn't make it Big Time [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1679377
Comments: 1
Kudos: 31





	1. Clouds Climb High

Adam could hardly breathe easy. Not after what just happened; full of drunken laughter and raunchy jokes were him and the crew. Bellies full and warm, cheeks a fine rosy red from the alcohol, candles flickering on the tables casting warm shadows along the walls as the sea moved under them along to the horrendously played music above it. Mirth filled his heart.

And it ended, wasted away as quickly as the scenery changes as the wind shifts the desert sands. 

He thought his fears and anxieties long gone, wasted away as the crew fed him and gave him the love he had always longed for.

He thought that monstrous past of his gone. Dead! He was doing so well, or at least, he thought he was.

He thought it was gone. He thought that the past no longer haunted him.

He was wrong to assume so.

Warm shadows turned cold. The candlelight becoming a roaring fire to accompany the rushing of blood in his ears. Warm heart sinking cold and low in dread as a swell of fear rushed over him.

He knew it was just a joke, a harmless, dirty joke. 

Adam didn’t understand why it gave him this reaction.

It felt like a betrayal. He doesn’t know why. He’s never told anyone of his past, what he had almost done before he met them. So they couldn’t have known! It was just some stupid joke! He needn’t fear anything!

It was just a joke.

And yet.

Why?

Why does his heart palpitate in anticipation? Why does cold sweat line his forehead and wet his hands? Why do his eyes bounce from corner to corner searching for a threat?

The eyes and faces around him become angry, fear and terror ridden. They look at him with shadowed eyes and snarling mouths. Instead of half empty beer cups, they hold sticks and clubs and torches. He hears shouting and insults instead of the laughter that surrounds him, closing in on him.

He shakes his head and blinks. Adam knows that the images are only in his head. He knows that none aboard the ship would wish him harm. 

But-

“I’m pretty sure you could snap Robert’s neck and he would still look at you as if you hung the moon and all the stars in the sky!”

Roman’s look that he had given Adam was filled with mirth and teasing, lips curled up halfway through a bellowing laugh as he slammed his cup back and chugged the rest of his drink.

But though his eyes were warm, Adam couldn’t help but look into them and meet an accusatory stare, a knowing look. His lips weren’t pulled back into laughter, but more like the icy grin of a snake. The slam of his cup against the wooden table sounded too much like wood against skin. Adam barely held back his shudder, the memory of a stick beating against his back coming to the forefront of his mind with a vengeance.

_ He knows _

Adam merely smiled shakily and drank the rest of his cup. The alcohol burning his throat more than it usually did on its way down. It felt like fire in his esophagus. He didn’t trust himself to speak, less he speak the wrong thing and earn himself biting words and aching bones.

Adam’s worries went unnoticed by the others as they carried on in their happy mood, drinking away the day and work and telling stories. They didn’t notice Adam slink away and up towards the deck of the ship. They didn’t notice the haunted eyes, the stooped stature, the dragging footsteps nor shaking hands as he left them to their merriness below deck. He couldn’t dare to look behind, fearing to meet the faces of strangers instead of the faces of his own family. He didn’t look, and they didn’t look either.

For who would miss an abomination?

Creature settled himself against the railing of the ship, cradling the drink he brought with him in his stitched hands like one handles fragile china. The cold, salt-ridden winds that bit into his skin and bones were a welcome pain, refreshing the burning poison in his lungs and clearing his mind of alcohol.

The stolen heart in his chest ached as his unnatural yellow eyes stared down into the inky sea below. In the silence, he wondered of the stories that these old bones that made up his frame told, what had they experienced- what had they lived through, before breaking apart and melding together again to be shoved into his own, reborn body. He wondered of the types of people that used to possess his limbs, his heart and lungs, his brain. He didn’t think he wanted to know. In the silence, his mind stretched on for eternity in a single second, pondering the many parts that created him. He wondered about the eyes that gave him vision, as he stared into the slowly, blackening waters as the clouds climbed and veiled the heavens and its celestial body that rested over his head.

And Creature was glad the clouds obscured the moonlight above.

For even the soft and motherly light of the moon should never shine on a monster such as him.


	2. But the Moon Shines Sweeter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone Notices.

Adam’s worries, his sorrows and his fears he thought, all went unnoticed by the crew. 

Except for one.

* * *

Robert stared after the place Adam had left. Where was the other off to in such a hurry? Away from their night of mirth?

He shook his head and tried to focus back in on the conversation around him, Petro at his side and laughing uproariously at another half arsed joke. Yet he couldn’t rid the gnawing in his gut, the ticklish sense in the back of his mind that something was wrong. That someone was  _ hurt _ . He hated to think of what it means.

He glanced up again, the beating of his heart only growing faster as he gazed at the spot where Adam once sat.

He couldn’t ignore it any longer.

With a rushed and slightly slurred apology, Robert excused himself from the table, hurrying to the stairs up towards the deck where he hoped to find Adam.

The chilled night air blew into his face, shocking some of the drunkenness from his system. Instantly he hugged his coat tighter around him, grateful for the thick wool lining. He frowned though, for Adam did not happen to be wearing any thick linens when he had rushed from the room. Surely, he must be freezing and would have returned below deck, for it had been quite some time since he had first noticed the rushed absence of the other.

Just as Robert was about to leave the deck to search below the ship, he caught sight of a glinting beer glass and waving hair as the clouds parted and revealed to him his dear companion. Adam.

Entranced, the captain could only stare as surprisingly elegant and gentle fingers curled around the small looking glass, black hair moving to the wind like soft waves in the ocean, and white billowing shirt encompassing the other’s body. With the moon shining down, it was as if Adam was covered in a glow.

He walked forward, drinking in the appearance of the other as a drowning sailor grasps for air. Desperate. For he was desperate. Who else could say that they had ever met someone as fetching, as breathtaking as this person before him.

It was only when Robert neared him did he notice the dissatisfying frown marring thin, black lips, and forlorn sulfur yellow eyes as they stared blankly in front of them. For a while, Robert was held captive, frozen, as tears sprung into his own eyes and his breath caught in his lungs as he felt the sadness and pain and suffering roll off the other. The grief and heartache he felt so overwhelming that he was surprised he was still standing. No being, as beautiful and as gentle as this one should ever know such sorrow, such anguish.

Before he even knew he was doing it, his hand was stretching outward to lightly place itself on Adam’s wrist. The flinch that came from the contact was gut wrenching, and he immediately pulled away, taking a half step back as he witnessed the terror and half formed pain in piercing yellow eyes and stuttering breaths that fell from his lips as Adam held his hand back as if he had been burned; the glass, hit from its perch, fell down into the icy waters below.

“Adam…” The name fell as softly from his lips as a feather falls to the earth, and yet it’s softness still caused a twist of a grimace on that beautiful mouth.

“Robert.” Adam replied in greeting, his own voice surprisingly croaky and owning nothing of the smoky, velvety timbers the captain knew the other had. His heart constricted at the poor sound.

He reached out again, warm hand against cold stitched ones, and he nearly cried in grief at the subtle fear in Adam’s eyes.  _ Oh my dear, who has caused such scars in your heart and mind that now, amongst friends and family, you still back away from pain not there. Pain that will never reach you as long as we are around. Who placed such an emotion in your body that it feels stitched in like the rest of you, recreated within you as you took your first breath and heightened, as all your senses were. What may I do, in order for you to feel as loved as I wish you to be. What may I do, to feel deserving of it all; because you do deserve it, every ounce of kindness and love and affection. I promise you, you deserve it. _ All things Robert thought, though couldn’t form through his lips as stared.

Slowly, so that his dear would see, he brought a cold hand to his lips, pressing softly on bony knuckles. 

He released the hand letting it rest against the railing as he closed some distance between himself and Adam, reaching out to place a hand on the underside of his elbow, caressing the stitches and scars there, while the other rested on his hip.

He felt the other melt into his touch, yearning for the fondness of simple kindness. It only made the poor captain’s heart ache more.

“Oh, my dear. Why do you shy away, what has driven you here in the moonlight and caused you such sorrow. I beg you, tell me so we may be rid of it, so that I may once again see happiness in your eyes and joy on your lips.” He murmured. 

A smile, not quite reaching his eyes, spread across the scarred face, and oh, how Robert would have cried for the facade the other tried to put up.

“Oh captain,” He whispered, “it is nothing. It is merely demons and monsters in my own mind, merely shadows that flicker ‘neath my eyelids. Nothing you, nor myself, can fix.”

“Aye, but something must have triggered such a reaction from you. Never, in my months of knowing you, have I seen such a potent fear cross your beautiful face.”

And to his horror, tears welled up in those eyes. Eyelids closed and as soft lashes brushed the skin did the tears drip down his chin as he hung his head. Robert could hardly move, overtaken with such emotion as the wetness fell upon his hand as Adam mourned, mourned for something that Robert could not begin to understand. 

“My captain, do not mock my features in such a way. Do not insult me with such untruthful words, I beg you.” 

Fury gripped his gut and Robert’s hand lay more firmly on the other as he reached up to grasp his chin. He knew how desperate he looked, but he wanted Adam to witness his desperation, he wanted him to know his earnestness.

“Look at me my dear, please.” He implored. When Adam finally did, did he begin to speak. “Tell me, what would I have to gain if I were to lie about your features. I have none. I merely speak a truth. I find you beautiful- nay- ethereal standing before me. I know nothing of your past, and I know not of your experiences, but I do not need to hear them to know that whoever has said so to you? They are wrong, deeply and so terribly wrong. You are not hideous, you are not a monster.”

“But I am!” Adam cried, voice weakened and sorrowful to hear. “For who but a monster would dream of hurting a family in an all consuming fury! For who but a monster would wish their creator ill will for creating it! For who but a monster would look as grotesque as I!” Adam wiped at his tears, voice thick with emotion. “I am a monster. It is stitched into the marrow of my bones, into my nerve endings and joints. Only a monster would think of such horrid things! You should not think of me the way that you do! There is a strength, a speed, that none naturally born could bare within me. I am not of your kind nor of any other living being that walks, that bleeds, on this Earth. I am an impossibility, one that could not even be graced a name!” He wailed.

Robert could only listen in shock. His silence a deafening note to the wretched sobs that shook the others frame as Adam dropped to the floor, hands curled tightly to his chest and shaking shoulders hunched in as strands of inky black created a curtain in his face. A shield against the world.

“You should have left me to die on the ice.”

“NO!”

Panic seized Robert’s heart and he dropped to his knees in an instant, gripping Adam’s shoulders and looking him in the eyes.

“Never!” He cried, “Never would I wish that upon you!”

“It is true!” 

“No!” He said softly. And the word that fell from his mouth was a broken plea, a beg that would have been shameful to be heard by anyone else but Adam. Robert wished to fight away the despair, the doubt that curled and decayed in Adam’s chest and bled lies disguised as truths into his mind. “Oh my dear, now I see so clearly the weight you carry in your heart, bleeding under the pressure. I promise you, love, that you are not a monster. Not in my eyes, not in the crew’s eyes, not even in the star’s eyes. Even now, after hearing parts of your past, does my heart beat with a yearning to be with you, to have you by my side, to love you. My heart, my very soul, aches for your companionship. Can’t you see. If you were a monster, shouldn’t my heart not beat so? Shouldn’t my soul reject yours? And yet it does not. You are a not a monster my dear, you are not a creature. You are Adam. You are my love. You are their crewman. You’re our family. You  _ are _ loved.”

Tears were running down both their faces freely now, as their emotions and Adam’s deepest insecurities were laid bare for Robert to see. With a broken cry did Adam fall into his embrace, accepting the truth in the captains words and the love nestled in his heart.

“You’re not a monster my dear. Just Adam.”

And with that, Adam broke, shattering like glass as he became undone. Robert could only hold him, trying to force every bit of love and affection and care through his arms so that Adam could  _ understand _ . He let his own tears fall, laying there under the heavens as he held the person he cared most for in the world tighter to his chest.

And Robert was glad the moon was not hidden behind the clouds.

For the soft and motherly shine of its surface should bare witness to their tenderness and be glad to be a spectator to such a spectacle. To such love.


End file.
